Uva-dare (Digital Academic Repository) Ethno-territorial conflict and coexistence in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Fereydan
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ETHNIC GROUP MAIN RELIGION MAIN LANGUAGE LANGUAGE FAMILY LANGUAGE BRANCH Armenian Orthodox Christianity Armenian Armenian . Bakhtiari Shi’ite Islam Persian Iranian Southwestern Georgian Shi’ite Islam Georgian Kartvelian . Khwansari Shi’ite Islam Khwansari (Central Iranian) Iranian Northwestern Lurs Shi’ite Islam
Luri Iranian Southwestern Persian- speaker
Shi’ite Islam Persian
Iranian Southwestern Turkic- speaker
Shi’ite Islam (Fereydani) Turkic Turkic Oghuz
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Chapter Six Ethno-Territorial Conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia
Eight out of the 129 ethno-territorial encounters are, or were until recently, afflicted by ethno-territorial conflict. All these encounters are located in the (post-)Soviet space: the South Ossetian and Abkhazian conflicts in Georgia; the North Ossetian-Ingush conflict over Prigorodny and the Chechen conflicts in Russia; the Armenian-Azeri conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan; the Osh conflict between the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan; and finally the Tajikistani Civil War, with the participation of Uzbeks and Pamiris in alliance with and against Tajiks. There were no ethno-territorial conflicts in Fereydan.
The aim of this chapter is to provide an analytical description of these cases of conflict. As the recent political, and more so territorial, histories of these region prior to the conflicts are important, these histories are also discussed. Although attention is paid to the histories of these ethno-territorial conflicts, chronological discussions of these conflicts are not within the scope of this chapter. 129
There will be a focus on the explaining conditions that were introduced in the previous chapters. However, the analytic descriptions are not restricted to these. The case study character allows for more in-depth analysis and provides opportunities to explore and discuss nuances and additional explanations.
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One can consult many sources in order to read more in depth about the histories of these conflicts and the regions in which they have occurred. History, for obvious reasons, has taken an important place in the understanding and explanation of the ethno-territorial conflicts in the Caucasus in many authors’ works (e.g. Cornell 2001; Cornell 2011; Cheterian 2008; Hille 2010; King 2008a; De Waal 2010; Zürcher 2007). In addition, those who discuss the conflicts and political situations by focusing on the course of the current conflicts, whether in a chronological order focusing on the present or reporting from the field, do not fail to refer (occasionally) to past events and history (see e.g. Goltz 1999; Goltz 2003; Goltz 2009a; O’Ballance 1997; De Waal 2003). Even though Central Asia is not as much afflicted by ethno-territorial conflicts as the Caucasus is, many studies do discuss history and historical factors in the explanation and understanding of (post-)Soviet-era politics, which also include conflicts there (see e.g. Atabaki & O’Kane [eds] 1998; Bergne 2007; Jonson 2006; Khalid 2007).
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Political-Territorial History of the South Caucasus The South Caucasus has been an arena of power struggle between the great powers for a long time. The Iranian, Ottoman, and later Russian empires have competed for dominance in this region, and periods of direct imperial rule, suzerainty, and local rule have followed each other in a disorderly manner. Russia conquered the South Caucasus in the first half of the 19 th
century, and its conquest and sovereignty in the South Caucasus was confirmed by two treaties with the Qajar Iran, which had lost a rather large part of its territory to Tsarist Russia (Bournoutian 1998: 59-67; Cornell 2001: 37; Hunter 1997: 437-438; Hunter 2006: 112). These two treaties, the Golestan (Gulistan) (1813) 130
and Torkamanchay (Turkmanchay) (1828), 131 were a beginning point for the new political realities in the region, and as they were very humiliating are referred to in Iran as Nangin or Shum, two Persian words with very negative connotations (see e.g. Hunter 1997: 437-438; Takmil Homayun 2001: 29- 39). These two treaties were manifestation of a new geopolitical and ethno-political order. They marked the beginning of colonization of the South Caucasus by Russia and changed the demography and ethno- political power relations in the region. While Shi’ite Muslims were the favorites in the Iranian times, Orthodox Christians became the favorites of the Russians. Although after the Russian conquest the number of Armenians in the South Caucasus increased, the ethnic map of the region until the early 20 th century was still very different from what it was at the end of the 20 th century—and from what is now. In the 19 th century, Armenians lived mainly in the urban centers all around the Caucasus, in Georgia, and in the territories of the modern-day republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The predominantly rural Azerbaijanis, who at that time were called Tatars, Muslims, Shi’ite Turks, or even Persians by different people(s) and sources (see. e.g. Bronevskiy: 2004 [19 th century]; Tsutstiev 2006), lived scattered throughout the southern part of Transcaucasia. 132
130 Treaty of Golestan. (Russian) (other spellings are also possible). Available online at the Khronos website: http://www.hrono.ru/dokum/ruper1813.html (Accessed 12 May 2011). Treaty of Golestan. (English) (other spellings are also possible). Available online at The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS) website: http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Iran/golestan.htm (Accessed 12 May 2011). 131 Treaty of Torkamanchay. (Russian) (other spellings are also possible). Available online at the Moscow State University M.V. Lomonosov, Faculty of History website: http://www.hist.msu.ru/ER/Etext/FOREIGN/turkman.htm (Accessed 12 May 2011). Treaty of Torkamanchay. (English) (other spellings are also possible). Available online at The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies’ (CAIS) website: http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Iran/torkmanchai.htm (Accessed 12 May 2011). 132 The Turkic-speaking, predominantly Shi’ite Muslim people in Transcaucasia, who are now called Azeri or Azerbaijani, were before called Tatar, Turk, Muslim (Musalman), or Persian by different 171
The territory of modern-day Armenia was inhabited predominantly by Muslims, but changed rather rapidly in favor of Christian Armenians. From the mid-20 th century until the end of 1989, however, there evolved a nearly ethnically homogeneous Armenia, in which Armenians constituted more than 93% of the population, in addition to Azerbaijan and Georgia, in which the titular groups constituted, respectively, more than 82% and 70% of their total populations, according to the last Soviet census (1989). The Russian conquest of the Caucasus was an important event and needs more discussion, because it clearly shows the allegiances based on religions, but also qualifies this simple black-and-white picture. First, although Orthodox Christians were subordinated to Shi’ite Muslims, they were still tolerated and could get along rather well with their Shi’ite (and Sunni) neighbors, who shared similar culture. Russia was a foreign power and sought its own interests, which in some cases coincided with those of Christians and in other cases did not. As will be seen below, a significant part of the Christian Georgian population, both the nobility and peasants, were not quite happy with the Russian supremacy in their native lands. At the end of the 18 th century, Iran was weak, while a strong vital Orthodox Christian Russia was approaching Transcaucasia. The Georgian king, Erekle (Irakli) II of Kartli-Kakheti (Eastern Georgia), whose authority was also recognized by the west Georgian dynasts (Gachechiladze 1995: 26), signed a treaty by virtue of which his kingdom was to become a protectorate of Russia. His exact motive can be speculated about. In the context of a chaotic political succession in Iran and the devastating consequences of political rivalries in Iran, protection from an emerging Orthodox Christian and powerful Russia was a sensible choice. That does not necessarily mean, however, that Erekle II was anti- Iranian or anti-Muslim. Despite religious differences, the Georgian culture had a strong Iranian flavor (see Soudavar Farmanfarmaian 2009). He himself had served as an Iranian general in Nader Shah’s conquest of India. Georgian rulers had many Muslim subjects and were generally tolerant and kind to them (Muliani 2000: 193 and 240). Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar,133 the Iranian king of the time, who was establishing his sovereignty over all the Iranian territories, had waged wars in many regions with success. In his Caucasian campaign, he
people and sources (see e.g. Bronevskiy: 2004 [19 th century]; Tsutsiev 2006). It is true that their Turkic language is similar to that of the Azeris in Iran, who have been called Azeris for centuries, but the ancestors of the modern-day Transcaucasian Azeris were not called such; they were called Tatars in the Russian empire. Although there are a few references to them with ethnonyms similar to Azerbaijani at the end of the 19 th century, the ethnonym Azerbaijani gained prevalence after the collapse of the Russian empire. 133
Many Iranian military commanders and administrators were (Islamized) Georgians, and many members of Iranian royal families, notably of the Safavid dynasty and nobility, had Georgian blood. It is reputed that Agha Mohammad Khan from the Qajar tribe, who were related to the Safavids, had partially Georgian roots (see Muliani 2000: 193 and 206-294). 172
sacked Tbilisi (1795), reputedly at the instigation of Javad Khan Ziadoghlu Qajar, a prominent Turkic-speaking Shi’ite political figure and the powerful khan of the Ganja Khanate, who wanted to avenge earlier Georgian actions. Agha Muhammad Khan saw Georgia and, in general, the South Caucasus as part of his Iranian dominions. Whether his sack of Tbilisi was at Javad Khan’s instigation or because of religiously based rivalry is debatable. Agha Mohammad Khan, a eunuch who did not enjoy much popular respect, is known to have been a cruel ruler. His infamous massacre of Kerman, a Shi’ite Persian-speaking city in Iran, was similar to or worse than that of Tbilisi. Tbilisi had a mixed cultural composition. Next to Christian churches there was always a Shi’ite mosque alongside a Sunni one (which was destroyed by Agha Mohammad Khan) (see e.g. Sanikidze 2008: 164-168). Although Agha Mohammad Khan did not particularly do his best to spare Tbilisi’s Shi’ite Muslims either, Christians suffered enormously during his attack. Javad Khan, the main Shi’ite Muslim political figure at the frontline of the Russian-Iranian front was a member of the Qajar tribe, as were the Iranian ruling dynasty. He sided with Iran and resisted the Russian rapprochement. After Agha Mohammad Khan’s death in Karabakh (1797), Javad Khan in his letter (1803) to Pavel Tsitisanov, the Imperial Russian commander and head of the Russian troops in Georgia, wrote that he still regarded himself as loyal to Iran (Figure 6.1). Although he admitted in his letter that in a context of Iranian weakness, he was obliged to be subordinate to Russia, as his letter indicates, he believed in an Iranian victory and hoped to safeguard his and his constituency’s position and declared war on Russia. He probably realized that with the erosion of Iranian sovereignty and the ascendance of Russia, the position of Christians would be enhanced at the cost of that of Shi’ite Muslims. After the Russian conquest of the South Caucasus, the social position of Shi’ite Muslims and Christians, notably Armenians, reversed. Javad Khan’s hopes for an Iranian victory proved futile as he was killed one year later (1804) when Russians attacked and conquered the Ganja Khanate. Generally speaking, unlike Armenians, the Turkic-speaking Shi’ite Muslims of the Caucasus, who were later officially named Azeris supposedly for geopolitical reasons (see Chapter 7), entered the Russian Empire reluctantly and with bad grace. The attitude of Georgian nobility was diverse and evolved generally to anti-Russian. After Erekle II died, his relatively pro-Russian son, Giorgi XII, ruled briefly (1798–1800) and was to be followed by his son David (known as David the Regent) (1800–1801), when Russia, allegedly requested by Giorgi XII, officially annexed Georgia instead of installing his son as the new king, disrespecting the earlier agreements, and abolished the Georgian Orthodox Church’s autocephaly. Alexander
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Batonishvili, a prince of the house of Bagrationi, was a throne pretender and was supported by Iran and some members of the Georgian nobility, whose efforts towards crowing him as the king of Georgia were to no avail (Bournoutian 1984; Bournoutian 1998: 75 note 38; Soudavar Farmanfarmaian 2009: 38; Suny 1994: 70-72). He was a companion of the Qajar prince Abbas Mirza, who was tasked with fighting against Russia and the re-conquest of the lost Iranian dominions in The Caucasus. The last plot to reinstall the Georgian monarchy, by the kingship of Prince Alexander, was nipped in the bud. In accordance with the Iranian tradition that the vali (that is, a governor with a high degree of autonomous capabilities) was also recognized by Iran as the king of Georgia, Alexander was regarded as the Georgian vali in absentia in his exile in Iran (Soudavar Farmanfarmaian 2009: 38). Nevertheless, Georgia was never again ruled by a Georgian king after Alexander died in exile in Iran. Not only eastern Georgia, but also other Georgian lands and other areas in the Caucasus as far south as the Talysh and Nakhichevan areas were subordinated to Russia, whose sovereignty was confirmed by the two aforementioned treaties. “The Russian advance against Islam”, as Bernard Lewis (2002: 38) calls it, was already begun and was proceeding further. The Russian domination altered the religious map of Transcaucasia. The Abkhazians, similar to their Circassian kinfolk, also went through a sad ordeal. In the 19 th century Imperial Russia accused them of collaboration or sympathy with the Ottoman Empire, and compelled them to leave their lands and emigrate to the Ottoman empire. Accordingly, most Muslims left, but Christians stayed on (Gachechiladze 1995: 81). In the more southern parts of Transcaucasia, the Russian conquest also altered the religious demography. While Armenians of neighboring Iran and the Ottoman empire were encouraged to settle down in the newly conquered Russian territories, Muslims left. Today, family names such as Iravani, Nakhjevani, Qarabaghi, Shirvani, Lankarani, etc. are in abundance in Iran. These family names can be translated, respectively, as from Yerevan, Nakhichevan, Karabakh, Shirvan, and Lenkoran, all cities and areas located in the modern-day republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenians, in general, regarded Russia “as their liberator from the Muslim overlordship” (Swietochowski 1985: 39). Armenian support contributed to the Russian military successes:
Armenians of Ganja, Karabakh and Zangezur [in the southern part of modern-day Armenia and the western part of the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan] openly sided with the Russians during the first Russo-Persian war. They were instrumental in the speedy Russian successes. In the conquest of those khanates in 1805…. During the second Russo-Persian 174
war [which ended in a Russian victory], the Muslim population of Karabagh and the Caspian region welcomed the surprise Iranian attack, which had caught the Russian command off guard and would have annihilated the Russian administration and garrisons had not the Armenians and their armed volunteers protected the latter until the arrival of the Russian army. (Bournoutian 1998: 66)
Russia returned the Armenian favor generously. Although the Russian supremacy in Transcaucasia enhanced the position of Christians vis-à-vis Muslims, it was notably more beneficial for Armenians than any other (Christian) ethnic groups there. Russia put an end to the maltreatment of Armenian merchants and craftsmen by the Georgian nobility (Suny 1993: 37). After the Russian conquest, initially the Georgian nobility’s position vis-à-vis peasantry was enhanced, but later reform and the abolishment of serfdom gave more freedom to the peasants. While the Georgian nobility suffered under the Russian rule, even the peasants were not happy, because of the monetary obligations imposed upon them (Suny 1994: 112). Meanwhile, the Armenian merchants in eastern Georgia prospered. Georgians saw commerce as shameful and disdained Armenians who dominated the Transcaucasian urban economy (Suny 1993: 37-39). Although the Imperial Russian attitude toward the Armenian merchants and church was ambivalent and fluctuated, it was generally in favor of preferential treatment for Christians and notably Armenians (see Suny 1993: 34-41).
Armenians, a people with significant international connections, were influenced by European ideas about nationalism at the end of the 19 th
century. The idea of a national homeland, in the Transcaucasian lands where their ancestors lived, was certainly attractive to them. Already in the 19 th century the Armenians had better socio- economic positions than the local Muslims, despite the latter’s demographic predominance in the eastern part of the South Caucasus. A clear ethno-religious division of labor was visible in the oil industry in Baku. While Armenians profited from the oil industry, Muslims formed the bulk of the unskilled labor force (Ahanchi 2011: 7-9; Atabaki 2003: 417; O’Balance 1995: 29; Siwetochowski 1985: 39). As Atabaki (2003: 416-417) puts it:
We have useful data on the ethnic composition of the workforce in the Baku oilfield…. In the case of the Baku oilfield, Iranian workers constituted the majority of unskilled foreign workers in the region…. The labour market in the Baku oilfield was initially segmented by race, with oil companies hiring mainly Russians and Armenians for jobs requiring skill and literacy, and Muslim workers, Iranians, local Tatars [i.e. Azerbaijanis] and Dagestanis for lower-paid unskilled jobs.
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As a result of these social and economic discrepancies, Armenians were detested by their neighbors in the South Caucasus. Inter-ethnic clashes between Armenians and Muslims in the South Caucasus, even before the First World War, Armenian Genocide, and the mass migration of Armenian refugees from the Ottoman Empire. (The people who were later called Azerbaijanis were called Transcaucasian Tatars or simply Muslims by Russians and various peoples and sources.) These clashes first erupted after the Russian revolution of 1905, when various parts of the Russian Empire were struck by widespread unrest. The so-called Armenian-Tatar violence may have had a socio-economic rationale, but it soon transformed into purely ethnic and ethno-religious clashes, in which material gain also played a prominent role. As events showed in Nakhichevan, the Armenians there were not as wealthy as the Muslim elite, but Muslim-organized gangs still took advantage of the chaos, and possibly also of the Armenian stereotype elsewhere in the Caucasus, to kill and rob Armenians. As Luigi Villari wrote in 1906:
In 1829 Russia, after her last war with Persia, received Nakhitchevan, together with Erivan, by the treaty of Turkoman Chai. The Armenians played the same role in this conquest as they had done in that of other parts of the Caucasus, and it was largely through their action that the local princes were dispossessed. But if the khans no longer actually rule they are still very wealthy…it was only in trade that they [i.e. Armenians] had the advantage over the Tartars…. After the Baku outbreak in February the agitation among the Tartars spread to Nakhitchevan, and grew more and more acute…. [The Local Muslims] were all more or less armed, but their weapons were not always of the latest patterns. They set about to make good the deficiency, and through the early spring consignment after consignment of arms were smuggled in, chiefly from Persia…. The Armenians were completely taken by surprise; few of them had firearms, and there was no time to concentrate or organize resistance against this ferocious onslaught…. Out of 195 Armenian shops in the bazar, 180 were completely plundered, twenty safes were broken open and their contents stolen…. It was clear that although the original cause of the outbreak was racial hatred, the desire for plunder played no small part in bringing it about…. Out of a total of fifty-two villages with an Armenian or mixed Armeno-Tartar population, the official reports mention forty-seven in which Armenians were killed and wounded or their houses plundered and burnt. (Villari 1906: 266-272)
The violence spread all around Transcaucasia. In total, between 3,100 and 10,000 persons, mostly Muslims, died in the South Caucasus as the results of the Armeno-Tatar violence. “Indeed, all the available data suggests that the Muslims, who were usually on the attack suffered greater losses than the Armenians, though not overwhelmingly so” (Swietochowski 1985: 41). The fact that Muslims suffered higher losses than Armenians did is
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evidence of the better organization and military superiority of the Armenians (Swietochowski 1995: 39-40). The inter-ethnic violence erupted again a decade later, during the aftermath of the First World War and the Russian civil war (1917–1923). It is not surprising that the inter-ethnic violence in the South Caucasus has always emerged when the central authorities in the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union were weak or absent. Such violence occurred in the period following the Russian revolution of 1905, in the period of the First World War and the Russian civil war, and in the era of glasnost, perestroika, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 22 April 1918 an independent Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was proclaimed with Tbilisi as its capital, which lasted until 26 May 1918. The short-lived state was proclaimed by the Transcaucasian legislature, called Seim, because the Georgian Mensheviks (a socialist-democratic party rival to Lenin’s Bolsheviks) and the Armenian Dashnaktsutiun (an Armenian nationalist and self-declared socialist party) 134
did not regard Lenin’s Bolshevik regime as legitimate. Pressures from the Turkish military formed another reason to separate from Russia and declare independence. The Azerbaijani Musavat party (a political party with pan-Islamic and pro-Turkish flavor) “enthusiastically supported the decree of separation, but the Mensheviks and Dashnaks [i.e. the members of the Armenian Revolutionary Party, better known as Dashnakstutiun] took this step reluctantly” (Suny 1994: 191). Paradoxically, it was also because of Turkish military advances that the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic dissolved. Azerbaijanis, “who had long felt victims of the Christian overlords and bourgeoisie in Caucasia” (Suny 1994: 191), welcomed the Turkish military advances. When the Turkish military attacked the Armenian parts of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, Georgians knew that this republic was not viable. Seeking protection from Germany, they declared independence on 26 May 1918. Later, Azerbaijan and Armenia, the latter being in the middle of the battles of Sardar Abad (Armavir) and Qara Kilisa (Vanadzor), declared independence. The choice of the name Azerbaijan by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic raised suspicions in Iran that this new republic would serve as a device for Turkey to separate the northwestern region of Azerbaijan from Iran. Therefore, the authorities of the newly born state used the term “Caucasian Azerbaijan” in their documents circulating abroad (Swietochowski 1985: 129-130). Later, the name Azerbaijan was consciously retained by the Soviet leaders (and other policy makers) for obvious geopolitical and expansionist
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Dashnaktsutiun, or better, the Armenian Revolutionary Federataion (ARF), claims to be a socialist party. It is indeed a member of the “Socialist International”, of which its bitter enemy, the Turkish Republican People’s Party, a nationalist and Kemalist Turkish party, is also a member.
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reasons, notably hoping to gain, or in any case have more influence in, Iranian Azerbaijan (see Appendix 3). The capitals of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, the Democratic Republic of Armenia, and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic were, respectively, Tbilisi, Yerevan, and Ganja (Baku was in the hands of Bolsheviks and their supporters). Already before the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was dissolved, Baku was conquered by the Bolsheviks headed by Stepan Shaumian (also spelt Shahumian), an Armenian. This episode, known as the “March Days”, re- discovered and popularized in Azerbaijani public opinion, forms an important element of the Azerbaijani anti-Armenian rhetoric of recent decades. In a well-calculated move, Dashnaks joined the Bolsheviks. The state of affairs turned tragic when the Armenian Dashnak allies of the Bolsheviks in Baku “took to looting, burning, and killing in the Muslim sections of the city” (Swietochowski 1985: 116). According to Shaumian, the casualties numbered 3,000 (Swietochowski 1985: 117). With the prospect of the Turkish military advances towards Baku, and the Bolsheviks being outvoted from the Soviet of Baku, the Armenian Dashnaks, along with the Social Revolutionary Party and the Mensheviks (the latter two being the Bolsheviks’ rivals), turned to the British forces in neighboring Iran and asked for their help. The British occupied Baku and supported a coalition of the aforementioned parties, called the Central Caspian Dictatorship. However, Baku soon fell, and the Turkish army, accompanied by Azerbaijani fighters, took their revenge on Armenians.
The three Transcaucasian republics went through their short years of independence in total chaos and rivalry. In addition to a war with the Ottoman Turks, Armenia engaged in wars with Azerbaijan over Nakhichevan, Zangezur, and Karabakh, and with Georgia over the Akhalkalaki and Lori regions in the southern Georgia and northern Armenia. 135
The battle over Karabakh was bloody, and both Muslims and Armenians committed atrocities. In the context of a defeated Ottoman Empire, Armenians took control over Karabakh. The British military, however, replacing that of the defeated Turks, chose a Muslim as the governor of Karabakh. The situation in Georgia was not very calm either. Initially, Abkhazia was given a degree of autonomy, but South Ossetia was not. The Georgian Menshevik party, which initially was tolerant towards Georgia’s minorities, grew too nationalistic in the eyes of many minorities:
135 Detailed political maps of this period can be found in Atlas Etnopoliticheskoi Istorii Kavkaza (1774–2004) by Artur Tsutsiev (2006), and on the website Ethnic Conflicts, Border Disputes, Ideological Clashes, Terrorism (http://www.conflicts.rem33.com), a project founded by Andrew (Andreas) Andersen in 2002 and developing until now (2011). 178
In this situation, the Armenians, Ossetians, Abkhazians and other minorities, who had organized their own national soviets in 1917-18 began to fear they would be locked into a position of permanent inferiority. Social and economic resentments among non-Georgians combined with a newly discovered national consciousness that local Bolsheviks exploited, led to a series of armed conflicts with the Georgian National Guard. The revolts in non-Georgian areas, which entered Soviet mythology as resistance to Menshevik oppression, have become part of today’s competing ethnic histories. (Jones 1997: 508)
Soon the three short-lived independent republics were conquered by the Bolsheviks. The first one was Azerbaijan (April 1920), followed by Armenia (November 1920) and Georgia (April 19921). In 1921 the Bolsheviks united the three republics as constituent parts of the Transcaucasian Federative Soviet Socialist Republics, which lasted until 1936 when the three republics separated and each became a national Soviet Socialist Republic. Nakhichevan ASSR and the Nagorno-Karabakh AO were assigned to the Azerbaijan SSR. Already in 1921 a treaty had been signed between the Bolsheviks and Turkey (Treaty of Kars) by virtue of which Adjara was transferred to the Soviet Union, and in exchange, Ardahan, Kars, and Ararat areas (which were claimed by Armenia) were transferred to Turkey. Adjara, Ardahan, and Kars belonged for a time to the Tsarist Russian Empire and its successors, the Democratic Republics of Georgia and Armenia, but were regained by Turkey in the aftermath of the First World War. The newly regained Adjara was assigned as an autonomous republic (Adjara ASSR) to the Georgian SSR. A new South Ossetian AO was created out of the Georgia proper’s territory. Abkhazia was also assigned to Georgia. From 1921 until 1936 it was officially an SSR associated with Georgia and was therefore, together with Georgia, part of the Transcaucasian Federative Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1936, however, Abkhazia became a regular ASSR inside the Georgian SSR. The cases of Nagorno-Karabakh AO and the Nakhichevan ASSR in the Azerbaijan SSR and of South Ossetian AO and the Abkhazian ASSR in the Georgian SSR were the only cases in which double autonomies were created for the ethnic groups who were awarded autonomy elsewhere in the Soviet Union. The case of Nagorno-Karabakh is a remarkable one. While the majority of its inhabitants (almost three quarters) were Armenians, it was not awarded to Armenia, where the Armenians enjoyed titular status, but was awarded to Azerbaijan, and awarded a relatively lower degree of autonomy (AO). Nakhichevan, which was predominantly inhabited by Azeris, was given a higher autonomous status (ASSR). The (Soviet or already de-Sovietized) republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia proclaimed independence in 1991 before the 179
official dissolution of the Soviet Union—or earlier, depending on how one evaluates proclamations of sovereignty. These proclamations , however, became factual only when the Soviet Union dissolved on 25 December 1991.
The ethnic homogenization of the republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia continued during Soviet times and afterwards. Previously more heterogeneous, Azerbaijan in Soviet times became more Azerbaijani, and Armenia became almost ethnically homogeneously Armenian (see Figure 6.2). For example, Baku had become a predominantly Azeri city in the late 1980s, while that city had contained a diverse population of local Azeris, Armenians, Russians, diverse European groups, and in addition Iranians (mostly Iranian Azeris who had migrated there to work in the oil industry in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries) (see Atabaki 2003). Although Georgia did not become homogeneously Georgian, even Georgia became more Georgianized during Soviet times. For example, Tbilisi (Tiflis), a city in which Armenians, Azeris, and Russians constituted a large part of the population, became a predominantly Georgian city after Georgians from various regions of Georgia settled there and large numbers of non-Georgians left the city, notably for their titular republics. In a context in which the titulars identified themselves with their corresponding territory and in the context of a salience of ethno- nationalism after glasnost and perestroika, Georgia and Azerbaijan became involved in ethnic conflicts, which continued after their independence. In these republics the ethnic minorities that were titular in lower-ranked autonomous areas rebelled against the hosting states and demanded independence. After a relatively short period of fighting, they reached a ceasefire agreement with their host state. These are the cases of Armenian-Azerbaijani ethno-territorial conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Georgian-Ossetian ethno-territorial conflict over South Ossetia, and the Georgian–Abkhazian ethno-territorial conflict over Abkhazia. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has remained a frozen conflict since the corresponding ceasefire (1994), but the other two ethno-territorial conflicts re-erupted in an overt internationalized form more than a decade after their corresponding ceasefires (respectively 1992 and 1995). Allegedly after a period of planning and preparation (Cornell 2009; Cornell, Popjanevski & Nilsson 2008; Cornell & Starr 2009 [eds]). Russia invaded Georgia after hostilities re-emerged between the Georgian army and South Ossetian troops on 8 August 2008. All these three formerly autonomous territories have gained de facto independence. Nagorno- Karabakh is not recognized by any state. Even the position of Armenia towards it is ambiguous. South Ossetian independence is recognized by
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Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, and Tuvalu, and Abkhazia’s independence is recognized by the aforementioned states plus Vanuatu.
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